Life is good for Dr. Laura Nelson. Her kids have their ups and downs, but seem well adjusted to high school and college; her research project at the university is going well; and she is highly regarded as the chief of surgery at Tampa City Hospital. This sense of tranquility is disrupted when she is drawn into the diagnosis of the first case of HIV/AIDS seen in Tampa.

But the challenge of this new disease is dwarfed by the disaster that impacts Laura's life a few days later. A highly resistant bacterial infection is raging in the surgical intensive care unit, and patients are dying. To make matters worse, Laura's daughter is exposed to the bacteria and begins to show symptoms.

Desperate at this point, Laura calls her young friend, Dr. Stacy Jones, at the CDC in Atlanta. Stacy arrives in Tampa, unaware that a deadly plot is underway in Atlanta as a covert white supremacist cell plans an unthinkable attack on a massive scale.

Caught in the middle, Laura and Stacy encounter an opportunity to connect the Tampa nightmare with the impending Atlanta devastation. But can they prevent it?